Invest 10 minutes a day on your health and happiness and
never get stressed out again.

Stress takes its toll…but with tools like the relaxation
response you can limit the mental and physical health consequences of a stress
filled modern lifestyle.

Stress triggers the body’s flight or fight response, causing
a surge of adrenalin, increased heart and respiration rate, increased blood
flow to the muscles and a great many other physiological responses - all of
which are quite helpful if you need to fight off a pack of wolves -
but not so helpful when you’re infuriated by red tape at the DMV!

And unfortunately, the long term consequences of chronic
stress can include conditions like high blood pressure, chronic muscle aches
and pains, fatigue, sleeping problems, lowered immune system functioning and an
increased risk of anxiety and depression.1

But it’s not all bad news, if you’re willing to learn
techniques like the relaxation response and able to invest a little time for
stress reduction each day then you can do a lot to reverse the harmful
consequences of a stress-filled lifestyle.

The Relaxation Response

Stress amps you up – the relaxation response calms you down.

The relaxation response is a state of peace and resting that
causes a reversal of many of the physical and mental consequences of stress.
During a relaxation response your metabolism slows, your heart and respiration rate
decrease, your blood pressure falls slightly, more blood flows to your brain and
your muscles relax.

Once in a relaxation response you feel the stress-busting benefits
right away, and even better, if you practice the relaxation response regularly
you’ll notice that the calm and serenity you feel during the exercise will soon
expand across the rest of your day to day activities.2

And that’s not all; research shows that people who make the
relaxation response a regular practice can achieve lasting mental and physical
health benefits, such as:

In fact, making the relaxation response a daily habit may
well increase your longevity. When researchers looked at how the practice
influenced things at the genome level they found that people who did regular
relaxation response exercises experienced anti inflammatory and anti oxidant
changes that protected cells from the toxic effects of chronic stress. 4

So, are you ready to invest 10 to 20 minutes a day to feel
more calm across all situations, to protect yourself from disease, to feel more
energy and decisiveness, and maybe even to live a few years longer?

How to Do It - Achieving the Relaxation Response

Here’s how to do it, as taught at the Benson-Henry Institute
for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Before You Start

Think of a phrase, prayer, word, sound or even a muscle
movement that you’ll repeat over and over for 10 to 20 minutes. If you can tie
this into your belief system so much the better – so if you’re Christian you
might use a line from the Lord’s Prayer, for example.

Understand that you are going to try to clear your head from
any extraneous thoughts while you do your practice. That being said, thoughts
are always going to drift into your mind no matter how you try to stop them, so
when this happens, you just try to let them float away as you refocus your
attention on your repetitive mantra.

Getting Started

Sit comfortably and close your eyes

Begin progressively relaxing your muscles. Start with your
feet and focus on relaxing them as much as you can, then move to your calves
and then thighs and buttocks, to the abdomen and all the up to the shoulders
and neck.

Try to breathe slowly and calmly and start silently repeating your
chosen word or phrase on every exhale.

Don’t worry about how well you’re doing or whether you’re doing
it right and when thoughts intrude, just let them flow past and refocus your
attention on your word or phrase.

After 10 to 20 minutes, stop repeating your word or phrase,
but continue to sit with your eyes closed for another minute or so as you allow
your thoughts to return slowly to your conscious awareness.

Open your eyes but sit for another minute before getting up

Do this once or twice a day

Take Some Time for Yourself

You probably won’t find getting into a relaxation response
very difficult, and if you can find the time to do it regularly then you’ll
experience some great health and wellness rewards, but if you try this method
and find that it’s not for you, you can achieve the same types of results
through other activities that pull you into a similar state of mindfulness.

Other activities that can induce a similar relaxation response
include:

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